Slide plate



(No Model.) I

A.A. STROM.

SLIDE PLATE APPLIANCE FOR SPLIT SWITCHES.

110 452523.. Patented May 12,1891.

fiz y UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

AXEL A. STROM, OF AUSTIN, ASSIGNOR TO THE STROM MANUFACTURING COMPANY, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

SLIDE-PLATE APPLIANCE FOR SPLIT SWITCHES.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 452,323, dated May 12, 1891.

Application filed November 24, 1890. Serial No. 372,437. (No model.)

To all whom, it may concern:

Be it known that I, AXEL A. STROM, a citizen of the United States, residing at Austin, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a new and useful Improvement in SlidePlate Appliances for Split Switches, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to an improvement on the form of appliance for permitting the main rails of a railroad-switch to be braced from the slide-plates, and comprising the slide-plate with an elevated surface at the inner side of the main rail for the adjacent point rail to slide on and an abutment at the outer extremity of the plate, formed by bending it up at its extremity, for the rear end of a railbrace to confine the brace against the outer side of a main rail, and the latter, through the medium of the brace, against a shoulder on the slide-plate.

The object of my improvement is to provide a stronger and more rigid construction of abutment for confining the brace than that referred to; and it is, furthermore, my object to apply the said improvement to slide-plates connected together as set forth in my application for Letters Patent, Serial No. 372,438, filed concurrent herewith on the 24th day of November, 1890, for the purposes of causing them to perform in addition to their function of slide-plates that of a connecting-bar for maintaining the gage of the main rails at the switch.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a view in side elevation of a slide-plate provided with my improved construction of abutment for the rail-brace, shown as confined by it against a main-rail. Fig. 2isaperspective enlarged view of the slide-plate. Fig. 3 is a perspective view showing a single connectingbar provided at each end with my improved abutment and adapted for use as a slide-plate appliance for'both point rails.

A is the slide-plate, provided on its upper surface with an offset 7", from which in one direction the plate is thickened to afiord the raised surface q fora switch-rail and a depressed surface 19 to afford a seat for a main rail C and for arail-brace B. Near the outer end of the seat p the plate is provided with an abutment 0, comprising a section of the metal of the plate partly severed from the latter and raised or struck up to project obliquely above the plane of the seat-surface, the abutment being formed sufficiently far from the outer extremity of the seat-surface p to leave enough metal behind it to render the abutment rigidly resistant to the strain exerted against it from the rail 0, through the interposed brace B, which the abutment confines against the rail, the latter being thus also confined against the offset 4".

By forming the switch-rail seats q and mainrail seats 19 on a continuous plate or barD, as represented in Fig. 3, the device serves the additional purpose of a tie-bar for effectually holding the main rails against spreading and thereby reliably maintaining their gage at the switch,where it is of great importance that the main rails shall not spread under the the strain of passing trains.

WVhat I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. A slide-plate having on its main-rail and rail-brace seat portion an oblique abutment o, struck up therefrom between the extremities of the said seat portion, substantially as described.

2. A slide-plate A, having the raised switchrail surface q extending from an ofiset r, and the depressed main-rail and rail-brace seatp, and the oblique rail-brace abutment 0, struck up from the seat portion 19 between the ends thereof, substantially as described.

AXEL A. STROM.

In presence of- J. W. DYRENFORTH, M. J. FRosT. 

